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[Atlantica Online]: MMOTBS done perfectly.
Aldo
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
Introduction
Atlantica is a free online game set on an alternative version of planet earth where practically every myth is reality. You, the player, are from Atlantis and this gives you some very special gifts and the power to form a group of mercenaries and go around the world beating all sorts of mythical beasts and other players to smithereens one turn at a time.
Tactics/Combat
Yes, this game offers turn based combat. This is done in roughly the same way as Final Fantasy in that you run around in real time until you attack a mob. Then you move to a battle ground where both groups are lined up against each other in a 3x3 square with every character takes up one square. Based on whether you attacked the mob or the other way around it is determined who goes first. Character speed determines when a character can act. All characters have skills unique to their class, like buffs/debuffs/heals/damage and if you combine the skills of the right characters you can create combo attacks.
Strategy/Tweaking
Your main character as well as up to 8 mercenaries can all individually level up to lv99, can learn new skills, upgrade existing skills, equip 9 to 12 items that can also be upgraded by combining to items of the same level. There are dozens of classes so you will have to decide on who you want to have in your party as well. Combine this with the fact that you can decide on the formation of your party and you've got so much tweaking options that it will give every Diablo 2 player a raging boner.
Massive....multiplayer and I guess it's online too
Massive: every server has hundreds of active players at all times, they are mostly banded in guilds and parties at all times, because this gives huge bonuses you don't want to miss. There are PvP tournaments every few hours and all sorts of other PvP events throughout the day.
Multiplayer: If you are playing chances are you are teamed up with a friend/stranger for an exp bonus or to tackle bosses in one of the many dungeons. If you get tired of said players you can also beat a few of them in the PvP tournaments or guild wars for huge monetary rewards.
Online: At the moment the game has 4 servers that are all equally full, because of the TBS thing lag isn't really a problem, so that's nice.
Towns
Guilds can control towns which net them a lot of money and other perks.
Guilds
Anyone can start a guild, but it takes some effort and money to keep it alive, you need to log in at least once ever 5 days, need to pay a guild fee and if you want to have more than 5 members you need to pay more and more money. Eventually you can upgrade your guild to take over a town, but that is mostly end-game material.
Crafting
You learn any or all of the dozens of trade skills from either travelling crafters (all famous people) for a 10k fee or for free from player artisans. Look under Community-->artisan for lists. Crafting is costly and time-consuming, you need a lot of mats and you need to fight battles to craft.
Economy
All towns have a linked marketplace, certain items are offered against fixed prices which players usually undercut, but the more fancy items are completely elastic. You can also trade with other players without the marketplace, which would save you a n% listing fee.
Pictures
Shamelessly stolen from the previous thread:
And one of my character I kinda liked:
Videos of an old Korean build
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iFuY1NprrtU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AHZVLniru08&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kSorHELRce4&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AHZVLniru08&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kSorHELRce4&feature=related
Engrish
This game contains no Engrish, it has been translated almost perfectly.
Money money money
This game lives on its Cash Shop, but you won't need to buy anything until you're well into level 100, before that it's a pretty smooth sailing. For as far as cash shops go this one isn't that bad.
System Requirements
Yes, that's bloody 10GB. 
Picking your character
You can alter the looks of you character and chose between gender. Then you pick your weapon of choice which will determine what skills you will have access to in-game. You can only use your weapon type, so chose wisely! Here is a flash intro of all weapons: http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/center/guide/character.asp
Picking your mercenaries
You start off with 2 mercenaries, but you quickly get more. They fulfil all sorts of roles and there dozens of them and they can all be upgraded using special crystals. See here for an introduction to all mercenaries: http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/center/guide/character.asp
Who is playing?
Most of us are on Thebes, there's a few guys who posted in the thread, but I recommend you find a guild that has already been established.
I have a question about ---
Did you check the huge ingame help database? It is the size of an article about Star Wars.. If that doesn't solve it, Poshniallo found a wiki with quest info.
Pre-emptive FAQ
I can't do X, it says I need more Will!
You get more Will by just being online
I fucking hate Korea!
Ok...go write a blog about it.
That's a lot of grinding.
Ah! But combat is actually fun, so it's not that bad. It's like complaining about how it is such a grind to impregnate your woman. You are having sex, stop complaining.
Aldo on
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Posts
The things they sell are matters of convenience. They give you temporary versions of the things you buy via quests, so that when they run out you want to get it again because it seemed nice.
Stuff like being able to teleport to various cities out of combat, being able to see an enemy's current health, etc.
Stuff that is nice to have, but not vital.
Cos 1% of the player pays for real cash transfer bonus service.
Not old enough to apply for a debit card?
Holland is probably the only country left in the world where a creditcard is not common. :P We only have one in the family and we pretty much only use it for buying things online from abroad and sometimes a restaurant.
Anyway, Atlantica! I'm lev32, by the way. I just wrapped up Angor Kwat.
I'm level 21 with level 2 in medicine
I'm a 48 cannoneer on Thebes, really fun so far. The free battle system (the arenas every couple hours) are lots of fun, and a good way to get cash at the early levels. For winning, you get little atlantis coin shards which sell for 1100 each, and you get 10 per win to start off, and like 3 per loss. These go up depending on what pvp bracket you're in.
Downside: You will start getting matched against people way higher level than you, but are not good enough to get out of the bracket you're in. In these instances, you get to suck it up and take the loss, which isn't as bad as you might think.
If you guys have any questions, I'll try to answer them, but, honestly, it's like they have their own wiki in the game itself. The "info" tab up top, with field (dungeon) info, NPC info, item info, etc. will give you an auto-walk option to any place you've already been, and give you great information on any item you wanted to know about.
Professions: only pick one or two, and don't expect them to go anywhere fast.
Edit: the grind isn't as bad as you think. Quests help a ton, and arena pvp (and grouping) also gives exp books, which let you give free exp in exchange for will.
Oh, something I forgot: distance groups. You can group with anyone, anywhere, of any level. A fraction of their exp from things they kill will float down to you no matter what, from anywhere. Also, battles each of you fight can reward you both in exp books. If you can get into a group, do it. Even normal grouping, where you fight the same monsters, seems to give more exp than solo combat, especially since the exp becomes evenly distributed.
Looks very interesting.
Just so you know, both Ginseng and Dog Fruit have set prices over in the market of any major city. At 100gold a pop, its not hard to get at least level 4 medicine without spending more than like 50kg.
Yah I know, but for some reason people continue to put things on the market for more then the set prices. It makes no sense to me. Maybe people are using the market as long term storage or something. (And when you go in to buy 100 or more ginsing 100g just seems to hurt a bit. I am pretty cheap when I play games.)
Oh, also: try to find someone to mentor you, once you reach lev30 your mentor will receive 200k and mentor points (to be handed in later for awesome items) and it is common courtesy to give the money to the student. The whole thing comes with no strings attached, so it's really a win/win situation.
I'm on Thebes as Harsh, a swords-person. The game has so far lived up to its rep. I'm still getting the hang of timing things during my battle turns. The in-battle cutscenes are confusing me I think -- I have 15 seconds to move all my characters, but sometimes the cutscene interrupts my ability to give orders quickly. And do I get more time with more mercenaries? I'm still in the newbie area, so maybe things change after leaving.
Oh, and when am I supposed to pick up dropped items? They seem to disappear after a couple turns, but picking them up uses all of the character's action for that turn, so I can't have a meleer attack and pick up in one turn. Am I missing something?
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
You have quite a few turns to pick up loot, I usually have enough time to loot after all mobs are dead. Unless I'm getting adds and I'm facing 18 mobs at once. :P
Should I be doing something else to not be bored? This Amane NPC keeps giving me quests, but maybe I should just wander off?
Should I be worried if my mercenary characters aren't the types that I want? Or will I be able to quickly level up other types if I find them?
And leveling of mercs can be pretty slow, I must admit.
There should be some girl that is like "I GIVE QUEST NAO"
Then you are like "sir yes maam"
This, pretty much. If you got to the first town you walked right past her bosom.
Steam
Honestly suprised more people aren't taking to this here, its essentially a entirely free MMO with great combat. The combat may be a little simple at this point but the Final Fantasy style mechanic is really great, and it would be wisely ripped off frequently in the future. I especially like some of the character designs, notably the Inventor mercenary (wherecanigetone?).
The combat is simple at first because you only have a few mercs, but after a while you end up with a full party and you're fighting against mobs with a few tricks up their sleeves. The "real" tactics come looking once you start doing PvP.
*e: Inventor is a C-level merc and you get those later in the game. At least not before lev 33 (where I am at now :P)
Yup, that's a huge grind. And it is great incentive to team up so you get exp books so you can level up mercs without having to fight with them (there's a merc room somewhere in the menus).
So as I said in my pre-emptive FAQ it is a big grind, but combat is fun enough to make it okay.
I like the combat just fine.
I just don't like that I'm fighting a bunch of fairies who don't aggro, and I can see some Hell Warriors, and I go back to the quest NPC after finishing the 'kill fairies' quest and she gives me a 'kill Hell Warriors' quest, and while I'm killing hell warriors I see some unicorns, and I can start to see a pattern here that actually made me sad to notice the devil trees while I was killing unicorns for the next quest....
At this point there might as well not be anything between the successive groups of monsters. I'm hoping that changes.
This reminds me of my horrible FFVII addiction.
EDIT: How do you gain access to C list mercenaries? I really want an Inventor.
t poshniallo: I noticed the same thing early on, the whole show is on rails. Only later you get some alternative quest lines to follow.
Good fight - the earlier ones should have been more difficult as I had lots to learn
I wonder what happens now?
I'll be on later today, I forgot to say my in-game name is Aldah.
http://atlanticapedia.wetpaint.com/
A wiki for the game. Not complete, I'm sure, but useful. Let me understand what kinds of quests are coming up and showed me stuff that I want to keep playing for.
My character name is Tomaso, and I'm on Thebes. A leve 14 Gunner.
Steam
It's freakin awesome